Research Letters

Zuckerman versus Marais: a primatological collision

A. G. Morris
South African Journal of Science | Vol 105, No 5/6 | a97 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/sajs.v105i5/6.97 | © 2010 A. G. Morris | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 19 January 2010 | Published: 19 January 2010

About the author(s)

A. G. Morris, Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, Observatory 7925, South Africa., South Africa

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Abstract

The Afrikaans poet and writer Eugène Marais is well known in South Africa but not elsewhere. The publication of his The Soul of the Ape in 1969 triggered a hard hitting response from the British primatologist Solly Zuckerman, in which he attacked Marais’ writings and rejected him as a legitimate scientist. The two never met and Marais had been dead for nearly 40 years when Zuckerman’s attack took place. This paper examines the basis for Zuckerman’s attack and looks at the context of both men, especially in the light of Zuckerman’s combativeness and Marais’ naivety and lack of scientific rigour.

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